Oregon daily emerald., May 21, 1973, Page 8, Image 8

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Photo by James Link
Knut battled Ebba to 3:57.9 photo-finish in mile
Pre wins in last race as collegian
“I pulled every trick out of the pack and used it on the guy,”
marveled Oregon’s Steve Prefontaine.
‘‘Including noises every time he came close to make him think I
was hurting.”
The man Pre couldn’t fool was Washington State’s lithesome
Kenyan, John Ngeno, who made the three-mile a battle until the final
440. Then Prefontaine kicked away to a 62-second quarter and won in
13:10.4.
It broke Gerry Lindgren’s Pacific-8 meet record of 13:12.8 set in
1966, but if you were looking for happiness at Hayward Field Saturday,
it belonged to the Cougars.
WSU Assistant Jim Chaplin was pounding reporters on the back in
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the interview area, reminding that the Cougars returned 53 of 59
distance points.
Chaplin was having a hard time disguising his glee at Oregon’s
string of misfortunes in the distance races. A two-day horror that
began with Todd Lathers and Gary Williams’ disaster in the
steeplechase on Friday. Three Ducks dropped out of the three-mile.
Only Pre’s victory, coming in the wake of his painful back injury,
saved face for Bill Dellinger’s team.
In the end, Oregon outscored WSU by 12 points, and they’ll
probably remember this version of the conference championships
most for what weightman Mac Wilkins did.
Wilkins came through superbly on both days, picked up 20 points,
and established himself as the star of the meet. He won the discus
Saturday with a throw of 199-9 to follow up his 63-7 effort in the shot.
And the race that did most to make the final day exciting was the
mile, where Duck Knut Kvalheim came back from the dead in the last
200 yards and missed catching Hailu Ebba by inches.
Kvalheim was blasted by Oregon State’s Ethiopian once before. In
that one Ebba began his kick with a lap to go and burned everybody to
a crisp.
Knut failed to wilt Saturday, and when Ebba began to fade, he
made up 15 yards.
“I didn’t expect him to catch up,” said Ebba after he and
Kvalheim both clocked 3:57.9.
“I started slowing down and had to pick up and that was tough. He
was saving himself for the stretch. I leaned at the tape and saw him
behind me, and I was surprised.”
Ebba’s time broke a three-year-old conference record of 3:59.2 set
by Rick Riley of WSU.
Mark Feig for the first time in his college career got under four
minutes when he followed Kvalheim and Ebba home in 3:59.5.
Nobody was worried about the team race Saturday. UCLA had it
in the bag.
But for a few anxious moments after the 440 relay, Bruins' Coach
Jim Bush wasn’t so sure.
Benny Brown slipped on the freshly-watered urethane trying to
make a baton exchange with Ron Gaddis, and UCLA held on to its
meet record of having never finished this relay in two years.
Brown’s status, however, was critical. “Brown got spiked and fell
down and hurt his hip,” blurted Bush in the moments following the
race. “It looks like he’s out of the meet now. There goes the mile relay
and the 220. I’m gonna throw that bleep, bleep relay out.”
It turned out Benny just slipped and bruised his hip a bit. Not
enough to prevent his victory in the 440 a few minutes later.
“The leg didn’t bother me,” said Brown after his win over USC’s
Ken Randle in 46.6. “But it is a little sore now.”
Brown toyed with that 440 field, and then he went out and ran a 21.0
220 to finish second behind Don Quarrie.